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March 31, 2008
Sports of The Times: Showing Power, but Weakening a Neighborhood
The New York Times
by Harvey Araton
Times columnist Araton rues the sacrifice of scarce Bronx parkland to a new Yankee Stadium.
With the stadiums side by side, the end of one era blurs with the beginning of another. Baseball’s sights and sounds are always familiarly welcome. But I wonder how many visitors inching their cars through the narrow streets from the northern suburbs or New Jersey this season will notice what has been lost, or taken, from that crowded urban landscape.
How many will mourn the fallen trees, the oasis of green that was Macombs Dam Park, the way Joyce Hogi will?
“A lot of people in the neighborhood really never thought it was going to happen until the trees came down,” she said.
In stages, the park was shuttered, the people of what is often called the poorest Congressional district in America, thrown out at home. Finally, last November, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation issued a news release announcing the closing of the last remaining section, including the ball fields, the handball and basketball courts, to make way for another sure sign of artistic urban development, Garage A.
NoLandGrab: Sadly, we can't say it's a surprise that the City would try to claim an existing schoolyard or a pedestrian walkway among the "parkland" "replacing" Macombs Dam Park.
Posted by eric at March 31, 2008 4:20 PM